


joyride—before the joy died

by nctinee



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Background info in notes, Chensung in general is v minor, Childhood Memories, Growing Up, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Leaving Home, Lee Jeno Needs a Hug, Loneliness, Love Confessions, M/M, Mentioned Liu Yang Yang, Moving On, Sad, Sad Lee Jeno, Self-projecting at its finest, Tags are references to memories, What Was I Thinking?, Why Did I Write This?, all the relationships are in the past except for chensung, like really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22596451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nctinee/pseuds/nctinee
Summary: Jeno thinks back to the time they all sat on the cliffside just outside their town that faced the big bright city miles and miles away, and how they made a promise to always be friends. He knew back then it was false hope to their 16 and below aged minds, but it was comfort. It was a shield to the harsh reality that happiness doesn't last forever, and that teenage youth is just that—youth.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno, Lee Jeno/Mark Lee, Park Jisung/Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	joyride—before the joy died

**Author's Note:**

> I've been off for the past few weeks.
> 
> This is the result.
> 
> title - joyride by adam melchor

Jeno packs up his things in the cardboard boxes slowly as the moonlight shines in through the basement windows. He hums a basic tune that belongs to no song and bobs his head to the side to keep himself from going crazy while he packs up his entire life into boxes that will most likely never be opened again. He thinks over and over again that this is the best decision, he knows what he's doing for himself, but it's a lie. Everything is.

The basement empties box by box as he loads up his old Chevy Monte Carlo in his childhood home driveway, eyes and limbs heavy since he hasn't slept a wink in two days. His parents know he's out here, but they know they lost their son a long time ago so there's no point in trying to make him stay. There's nothing for him there. School's over, his friends are gone, his family doesn't care, and it's all just too hot and messy to try and unstick all the good reasons from the bad ones about staying here.

Renjun said that if he listed everything out there might be more reasons to stay than to leave, but he doesn't trust Renjun anymore. He didn't listen to his own advice, up and left three days after graduation. What good was it to listen to him?

His hometown was just full of lies and disappointments, Jeno concluded, so what was the point in staying? He didn't want to become a nameless face in a crowd, didn't want to walk past the broken memories and tainted dreams, he wanted to be something, even if it was just slightly less lonely in a different small town.

The note he leaves on the counter only says two things:

_Packed all my stuff, took money and my car_

_Don't bother looking for me, I'll be long gone by morning._

He drives past the library first, since it was the closest public building he lived by. 

He thinks back to the time Donghyuck broke out into song on one of the tables and got kicked out for two weeks two minutes into the performance. He never went in the library anyway, so he said it didn't matter. Thinking back he realizes not a lot mattered to Donghyuck, and concludes that fits into his run-and-go personality.

He drives downtown and remembers the eight of them running like it was the last time they would use their legs, breathing together like it was the last day they would live. Metaphorically, he was right, he hasn't felt alive the past month and a half, and maybe that's because he got his heart torn out of him.

He sees the table in the park where he and Mark kissed for the first time and many many times after, and he sees the tree where Renjun told him he loved him a day before graduation. He sees the field area where Jisung broke down in tears because the divorce became too much for him, and the wooded area in the back where Hwang Hyunjin threw all his parties. This park was probably one of the last places that wasn't tainted by the youth that flooded the town and still held bubblegum pink memories under midnight blue tears for the raven haired boy. He wishes he could bottle the memories up and keep them forever, but those are the wishes of a child, and he's spent so long trying to prove he isn't one.

He ends up at their secluded hangout spot in the back roads just outside of the main part of town, staring up at the giant brown structure in one of the sturdiest trees. The paint has chipped away and the tire swing and ladder both lay forgotten on the ground both caked in mud and too worn to use. 

That's how Jeno feels. Worn. So worn down by feelings and memories and everything in between that he doesn't work anymore. Maybe with a new coat of paint and some TLC he'll be fixed, but deep down he's still broken.

He gets out of his car and trudges up to the structure, pensive frown on his face. A voice in his head whispers memories and feelings into the front of his mind, but he pushes it back down. He doesn't want to remember what broke him, so he blocks it out and climbs the tree up to the structure, since the ladder has been torn down.

Through the little cubbyhole window, he can see that the inside is trashed beyond recognition, but the carvings on the wooden walls are faint and barely legible. The hammock he and Donghyuck always shared is laying crumpled on the floor next to an open box of Monopoly with pieces strewn all over the rotting floor. He vaguely remembers some of the other things in the treehouse, but not so important that he's attached to them.

He does notice— _holy shit is that_ —Mark's old Letterman jacket hung up neatly on a nail in the wall, bright and new in the old setting. He wonders how long it's been there, and if it was left with a purpose. The last time he really hung out with Mark, it was the beginning of last year and they went drinking on top of his roof. It wasn't necessarily a nice memory, but there was some good to it. Mark's hushed whispers of _I'll never forget you I'll never forget you I'll never_ and their tiny pecks on cheeks, lips, eyelids, foreheads, hands, were the good parts, but the moment ended and they were fighting, Jeno's mind a worry of _whymewhymewhymewhyme_ as Mark stumbled away with an empty smile and _Goodbye Jeno_ on his tongue.

The last he saw that Letterman jacket was that night, and now it was here, hung up in the place eight year old them called home. _Making amends_ he thought, and that makes his lips twitch.

He gives one last sweep through the treehouse, then turns and scales down the branches to his car. There's a part of his heart that's missing (left with the jacket and the games and the childhood _love_ ), and he resists with every part of him not to look back.

It's the past now, nothing he can do.

He drives past the highschool, images of running out the doors on the last day of Freshman year and hanging out in the front lot for lunch Senior year flooding his mind. 

He drives past Yangyang and Renjun's old houses (they somehow, ended up living next to each other, and that was the best thing that ever happened to the 11 year old boys), where they played tag and ghost in the graveyard and jumped on Yangyang's trampoline. 

There's the local bowling alley and arcade which closed down a few years earlier, where he held his 12th birthday party. The building is old and rundown, but he remembers when it was vibrant and full of life, kids with their friends and groups of families pouring in and out of the entrance. 

(He thinks the building symbolizes his life pretty well, good and happy within the first few years, but slowly dying as less and less people cared for it. He parks his car and takes a picture of the front, smashed glass doors and broken LED sign and all. He doesn't know why he does it, but knows it has to mean _something_.)

The last place he visits is the cliffside, where he saw Renjun last before he left the town forever, and where he tried to convince Yangyang not to jump to the crashing waves below. He lost a lot here, at the cliff, at the hands of this dark town, and he thinks _no more_. He owes it to the happy eight year old, the anxious 13 year old, the broken 18 year old.

Jeno thinks back to the time they all sat on the cliffside just outside their town that faced the big bright city miles and miles away, and how they made a promise to always be friends. He knew back then it was false hope to their 16 and below aged minds, but it was comfort. It was a shield to the harsh reality that happiness doesn't last forever, and that teenage youth is just that— _youth_.

He thinks about how the promise was broken and cracked even before they made it, and only built it up on unsteady foundation ready to collapse at any moment. 

Highschool was the foundation, and graduating was the collapse. Everything came crumbling down once the euphoria of freedom washed out of their systems and they were left with the reality of moving on. Mark had a full ride to a four-year college from a football scholarship, Renjun found an art school tucked in between big city buildings, Jaemin was always too high in the clouds to think about his life on the ground, and Jeno had no idea what he wanted. 

He's always felt like he was at the back of the pack. No plans for the future, no real passions toward hobbies or academics, and no genuine emotion to push him through his troubled times. 

So he said goodbye four times to the people he called his family with fake smiles and promises of keeping in touch that only the wind could hear. 

He looks down at the bottle in his hand as his heart beats faster. The picture is a little distorted through the glass, but he can still make out the shine in Donghyuck's chocolate brown hair, and the mischievous glint in Chenle's eyes. 

It's a good picture, Jeno's 16th birthday, and a desperate part of him wants the smiles to become real so he can have his childhood back, and everything can be like it was. Before Mark decided he was too good for them, before Renjun couldn't look him in the eyes, before Yangyang dove into depression and never came up for air, before it all came to an end.

 _But it all has to end eventually. You're the last link in the chain, you have to say goodbye_ , he thinks to himself as he closes his eyes. 

It's too dark for him to see the splash that the bottle makes, but he's already turned his back by the time it hits the water.

**Author's Note:**

> extra background info:
> 
> Mark and Jeno have been friends since they were 8. Mark's dad helped them build the treehouse, then left a few months later. Mark has always thought it was because he wasn't good enough for his dad to stay. The guilt never leaves.
> 
> Though it isn't said, Jaemin takes hallucinogens, hence the "head in the clouds" thing. He OD's years later, only Donghyuck shows up to the funeral.
> 
> Jeno was Yangyang's closest friend, and he regretted jumping seconds before hitting the water. His last thought is "I'm sorry I couldn't be better Jen"
> 
> Renjun comes back to the town after college and paints every good memory he has. The collection is put in a museum and seen by millions. The collection is titled "Saudade"
> 
> Donghyuck becomes a famous musician and basks in the fame that covers up his loneliness. He keeps up with each of his old friends' lives on social media, but never contacts. He regrets how everything turned out in the end.
> 
> Chenle and Jisung are a year younger than the other 6, and never noticed how broken they were until it was too late. They forgot about them eventually, too busy traveling around the world together to remember.
> 
> The bottle ends up somewhere in France, 20 years later, and it gets donated to a section in a nearby museum titled "Lost at Sea". The picture inside is displayed, and everyone wonders who the 8 young boys in the picture are, and why it seems like a goodbye.


End file.
